ey grated
in the lock, and the door flew open, showing a startled, white-faced
woman and frightened Tony in the doorway, while a whole string of
curious-eyed ladies were gathered in the hall behind them.

Silently Peace stared from one to another, and then as no one offered to
speak, she asked, "Where's the cook? Have you seen her lately?"

"No," laughed the matron, very evidently relieved at her reception.
"Tony tells me that a mistake has been made and that you don't belong to
the Home."

"He is right, I'm thankful to say," returned Peace with such a comical,
grown-up air that the ladies in the hall giggled and nudged each other,
and one of them ventured to ask, "Why?"

"Just think of having to live here day after day without any butter on
your bread, or gravy for your potatoes, or sugar in your oatmeal,
without any pies or cakes or puddings 'cept on Sundays and special
holidays,--with only mush, mush, mush all the time, and not even all the
milk you wanted, maybe! Hm! I'm glad I live in a house where there ain't
any Lady Boards to tell us what we have to do and what we can have to
eat. Come to think of it, I'm part of a _norphan_ 'sylum, really.
There's six of us at Grandpa Campbell's but he doesn't bring us up on
mush. We have all the butter and sugar and gravy and pudding and sauce
that we want--"

"This isn't an orphan asylum," said the matron kindly, wondering what
kind of a creature this queer child was, but already convinced that
Bridget had blundered, in spite of her startling resemblance to Lottie.

"It isn't? What do you call it then?"

"It is a Home for the purpose of taking care of children who have one or
both parents living, but who, for some reason, cannot be taken care of
in their own homes for a time."

"Oh! Then you take the place of mother to them?"

"I try to."

"Do you like your job?"

"Very, very much!"

"You do sound 'sif you did, but I sh'd think you'd hate to sit all those
little children down to butterless bread and gravyless potato and
sugarless mush. Oh, I forgot! That ain't your fault. It's the Lady Board
which says what you have to feed your children. Did you ever ask
them--the ladies, I mean--to be common visitors and eat just what the
rest of you had? I bet if you'd just try that, they'd soon send you
something different! I don't see how you stay so fat and rosy with--but
then you've only just come, haven't you? I s'pose there's lots of time
to get thin in. I wonder if t